A Conveyor for Christmas

Building a slot machine from scratch? You're not alone in your madness.
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wembleylion
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A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by wembleylion »

In September the wife and I were near South Shields so we paid a visit to the Seaside Memories exhibition where the wife put nearly all her pennies in the Conveyor on show there.
Not knowing what to buy her for a Christmas present I decided to build a Conveyor for her ------- Well! what else do you buy a woman who has everything. :lol:

The case is in oak; the door in beech; the backflash is a laminated photograph from Pennymachines Resources; the metalwork is from an old washing machine casing; the motor from Hong Kong, via eBay and the rest from stock in my workshop.

John

Conveyor for PM.JPG


Conveyor Inside for PM.JPG

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slotalot
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by slotalot »

:o TOP JOB John........ well done !!THUMBSX2!!
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gameswat
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by gameswat »

Cool!
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badpenny
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by badpenny »

Wowsers John! ......

An excellent job chap, and loyal to the original.

BP
pennymachines
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by pennymachines »

Brilliant work - apart from the absence of a stonking great motor, the mech looks very much like the original.
speedwell
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by speedwell »

Just amazing !!! I don't suppose you carefully prepared instructions/ guide for those far less talented ? And assuming not would you consider it ?!! Is your motor 240v or stepped down?
jimmycowman
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by jimmycowman »

wow wow wow.......... what a great job...
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wembleylion
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by wembleylion »

Many thanks to you all for your appreciative comments.

Speedwell
The motor is 220 volts 14 watt geared down internally to 50 rpm; I got it via eBay from a seller called Assisi Electric UK., item number 291556158217, cost £14.79 inc postage. The pulley reduction is 2 to 1 giving a pinwheel speed of 25 rpm. The motor is quite powerful but it is not ventilated so I don’t think it is really suitable for continuous operation but hopefully it should be ok for the stop start operation of the Conveyor. On my motor the wiring directions were in Chinese but there are three terminals on the motor the centre one is Live (brown) and the outside two give the rotation direction depending which one the Neutral (blue) wire is connected to.

Sorry, no drawings; I don’t normally do any except where complex assemblies are required. However, I have tried to do a very basic write-up on ‘How I built it’ but it is already running towards two A4 sheets; the full ’Words and music’ would be over ten sheets, I guess but if you are serious about building a Conveyor please PM me giving your email addy and I will send the basic information for you to view.

John
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arrgee
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by arrgee »

Great work John, a lovely machine and obviously put together with much skill, well done. !!THUMBSX2!!
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ddstoys
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by ddstoys »

Wow what a brilliant job.

And again this forum shows me what I needed to know and endless resource
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coppinpr
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by coppinpr »

truly remarkable achievement , CoNgRaTs how long from start to finish my I ask
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wembleylion
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by wembleylion »

Many thanks for your kind comment Coppinpr.

It took around 80 hours to complete but that included cutting and planing up the oak and beech from rough sawn boards.
I also had to remake the ball tracks because I made the first ones without the spring release sections and was suprised at how many times (3 or 4 in 10 goes) the pinwheels trapped the ball down onto the unsprung track and each time it meant opening the door to ease the belt back to release the ball.

John
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coppinpr
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by coppinpr »

its projects like this that give you an insight into the problems the original designers must have had,incredible and valuable information for the hobby, Id like a Buckley bones for Christmas...any chance you'd make me one :!?!:
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badpenny
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by badpenny »

.............. I know where there is a Buckley Bones available! ;-)
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wembleylion
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Re: A Conveyor for Christmas

Post by wembleylion »

its projects like this that give you an insight into the problems the original designers must have had,incredible and valuable information for the hobby, Id like a Buckley bones for Christmas...any chance you'd make me one :!?!:
One of the things I like about penny slot machines is seeing how the different manufacturers built, in some cases, quite complex sequencing mechanisms before the proliferation of electronics, stepper motors and the like that drive today's amusement machines; W.E. Bryans being the most accomplished exponent of this skill.

I am currently building, abet very slowly, a Bryans Retreeva from photographs. From photographs, without exact measurements other than the case, because it is the nearest way that I can get to the sketches and drawings that Bryans probably made when he designed each machine and it will give me a little flavour of some of the problems and triumphs that Bryans experienced.
The Retreeva is interesting because Bryans mach. senses the position of the balls to change the fulcrum points on the bars to produce two different actions from the same bar.

I occasionally make contemporary automata and prefer those that produce two or preferably more movements but very often the action of cams and leavers don't produce the movement I worked out for them so much time consuming reworking is required.
I presume that the designers of the more complex slot machines experienced similar problems and I wonder how they got around making adjustments. I wondered perhaps if they mocked up the design using slotted levers, adjustable cams etc, etc, something similar to Meccano perhaps, to prove the design.

John

PS, The Bones is certainly a smashing machine, I'll put a couple on my list ---- just wondering though, do they have workshops in Heaven?
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